SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Is there such a thing as being too safe? Jeff Kaufman writes that buses are much safer than cars, by about a factor of 67 but buses are not very popular and one of the main reasons is that if you look at situations where people who can afford private transit take mass transit instead, speed is the main factor. According to Kauffman, we should look at ways to make buses faster so more people will ride them, even if this means making them somewhat more dangerous. Kauffman presents some ideas, roughly in order from "we should definitely do this" to "this is crazy, but it would probably still reduce deaths overall when you take into account that more people would ride the bus": Suggestions include not to require buses to stop and open their doors at railroad crossings, allow the driver to start while someone is still at the front paying, allow buses to drive 25mph on the shoulder of the highway in traffic jams where the main lanes are averaging below 10mph, and leave (city) bus doors open, allowing people to get on and off any time at their own risk. "If we made buses more dangerous by the same percentage that motorcycles are more dangerous than cars," concludes Kauffman, "they would still be more than twice as safe as cars."
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Saturday March 19 2016, @03:45PM
I think that realistically, unless all of the buses were converted into an absurdly complex rapid-transit system, there aren't many changes that would improve ridership beyond the people already choosing to ride. Beyond that, it comes down to whether a person in traffic would much rather be driving a car or riding on a bus.
The "we'll just make it more dangerous" aspect of the article also ignores something really crucial: most measures reducing "bus safety" would increase the risk of negative impacts on the people that aren't riding the bus. For example, hopping on/off the bus at will doesn't take into consideration the severe psychological harm it would cause a driver to run the individual over; the highway shoulder intersects off-ramps, so a bus that's continuing to go straight would run the risk of hitting any cars that decide to take the off-ramp at the last minute and fail to notice the bus...things like that.
Also, I get the feeling that the author's motivation isn't so much an urge to save the environment (not sure if it even makes sense, given most buses use fossil fuels & a growing % of cars are electric or hybrid) as it is the same kind of impulse that makes some people want to push their lifestyle preferences on others.